No, ER, that was the Monkeys ("I'm a Believer" [1966]).

Actually, it was indeed a genre-wide war, which sometimes spilled to other forms, a true "Battle of the Bands," where the win for these four boys from Liverpool was a cake-walk. The gentlemen arrived with hopes of winning the world, and they got it, hands down. Cake. A classically trained musician, a swingster base, a Zen poet and a drummer who loved to drum, all with a pencion for the outrageous.

According to Guinness, Sir James Paul McCartney is the "most successful composer and recording artist of all time." "All time" is a pretty long time, but then transmission media have changed a bit over the centuries. Paul was born in 1942, in the heart of WWII. His father played in a Jazz band in the '20s and kept a piano forte in the living room of their home. He encouraged Paul and his younger brother, Michael, to be musical, with Paul taking piano lessons. He was, therefore, somewhat classically trained in musical comprehension and composition, but grew to prefer learning by ear, and eventually gave way to the acoustic guitar.

George Harrison was also born during the war, in 1943, to a mother who was particularly supportive of his chosen vocation. Growing up, he enjoyed the rhythms of George Formby, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt, Hoagy Carmichael, and Big Bill Broonzy, a pleasure I enjoy as well.

John W. Lennon started out as a jazz skiffler (I suppose that's spelled right), a somewhat obscure genre, with homemade instruments, sort of jug-bandish, what Mac Davis called po-boy music. Born in 1941, he spent his early childhood enduring WWII, with his father being a seldom-seen merchant seaman. It was a very troubled childhood, with his parents rather heated separation. At 11, his mother played Elvis records for him and taught him to play the banjo. Being a fair poet, as well as somewhat musically enclined, he wrote.

Richard Starkey (AKA Ringo Starr) was also born during the war years, in 1940. His mother enjoyed singing and dancing with her husband, a fairly righeous man who just happened to be an avid fan of swing, as I am. In 1953, he contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium, where he remained for two years. During his stay the medical staff encouraged him to join the hospital band, more to stimulate motor activity and relieve his boredom, leading to his first exposure to a percussion instrument; a makeshift mallet made from a cotton bobbin that he used to strike the cabinets next to his bed.

The above was from my reading up in the pages of Wiki.

Then came the Quarrymen and, a few years later, The Beatles.

I recall hearing of a letter to Elvis Presley, written by Dean Martin. Back in 1964, "Everybody Loves Somebody" knocked The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" off number one in the United States. This was what prompted the writing. Escentially, Dino wrote that if Elvis couldn't keep The Beatles off #1, he would be willing to take up the slack.